Trying to be reasonable in an unreasonable world.
Optimistic when possible; cynical when necessary.
Offering the world sporadic musings since 2005.
Elated supporter of the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama

Friday, February 24, 2006

Last night I was listening to what we commonly know as The White Album.

Iraq, Iran, the Imperial Presidency, the trampling of women's rights up one side of this planet and down the other, Katrina, Darfur, roof collapses, abducted children, my grandmother is dead. George is, too.

I dare you to read this and not hear the song:

While My Guitar Gently Weeps--George Harrison

I look at you all see the love there that's sleeping While my guitar gently weeps I look at the floor and I see it need sweeping Still my guitar gently weeps

I don't know why nobody told you how to unfold your love I don't know how someone controlled you they bought and sold you

I look at the world and I notice it's turning While my guitar gently weeps With every mistake we must surely be learning Still my guitar gently weeps

I don't know how you were diverted you were perverted too I don't know how you were inverted no one alerted you

I look at you all see the love there that's sleeping While my guitar gently weeps I look at you all Still my guitar gently weeps

I lived with my grandmother, slept in the same room with her, in a crib, still, but that might have had more to do with my grandmother's abundant caution than my age; her bed was pushed up against my crib. I was old enough to climb in and out of the crib, on to her bed, and down to the floor.

I had been given a cookie to eat, a chocolate chip cookie. The chips formed a face, maybe accidentally?

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Researching something totally unrelated to Iraq, I checked into the homepage of the major newspaper of my childhood, the Baltimore Sun. A little link titled "Maryland's Fallen" caught my eye. (I can't directly link to it; you'll see why if you go to the site and click on it. I'm guessing it's always there, but might move from one day's layout to the next. Today it appeared under the lead story about the bombed golden-domed shrine.) (2-23 edit: this link will take you to the Sun's Iraq page, which leads to the "Maryland's Fallen" presentation.)

I clicked on it and began reading, looking.

A few moments in, I felt as if I had fallen out of the looking glass and back into reality, since my current hometown's newspaper would declare Cindy Sheehan Day before it would assemble a feature like this. Not overtly political, the Sun's tribute nevertheless reports the ugly truth in great detail: people, beloved people, die in the service of this enterprise.

This is not unlike the Nightline broadcast of a few years ago that featured the names and photos of the then-721 dead: respectful, somber...real.

Each of the (currently 39) soldiers receives a full profile, including photos and links to stories about him (in one case, her).

The most heartbreaking part is the "view by date" section which includes a timeline. Only three of the 39 died before "Bush declares end to major combat."

While the government sneaks the coffins in down the road in Dover, Delaware, the Sun reminds us that the dead are neither statistics, nor invisible. The dead are our fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, friends.

"Valentine's Day is the biggest day of the year for private investigators," Tony Delorenzo, of Private Detectives of America, a New Jersey-based company, told AFP.

"This year we're doing surveillance Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday because if somebody has a lover it will be on one of those days to catch him."

Delorenzo and several other sleuths contacted said that in the run-up to the February 14 holiday, they had been overwhelmed with appeals by men and women seeking to find out whether their partner was unfaithful.

Sunday, February 12, 2006

To everything there is a seasonA time for every purpose under heavenA time to be born, and a time to die...A time to break down, and a time to build upA time to weep, and a time to laughA time to mourn, and a time to dance...

That sums up where we are right now: sad, but joyful that we had her in our lives and that she's no longer suffering.

Friday, February 10, 2006

When I was a child, the first poet whose name I knew was Carl Sandburg. In fact, I thought he was HUGELY famous, maybe the most famous poet ever.

Perspective is everything.

I was born in Chicago, spent my first years in Rock Island, and after I moved to Maryland, still returned almost every year of my childhood and hung out in towns and small villages near the (now known as) Quad Cities. Neponset, where my great-grandparents lived, is one of those villages. And Galesburg, one of those towns, is Pulitzer-prize winner Sandburg’s birthplace. When I was very young, I traveled many times past the house where he was born, and I took it as for granted as I now take the grocery stores on every other block. (Poet’s birthplace, yeah, yeah.) Sandburg was ubiquitous. Sandburg was the 1960’s small-town version of a rock star.

Even though he rarely shows up in the lit anthologies sent to me today by eager publishers, Sandburg apparently still holds a position in the marketplace. I thought I’d buy his Complete Poems, freshened up and reissued in 2003, but a used version on Amazon costs $25.08, almost as much as the brand-new price of $26.40.

Maybe next month.

We all know this poem; because it’s short, it’s the one we chose when the teacher said we had to memorize a poem:

Fog--Carl Sandburg

The fog comeson little cat feet.

It sits looking over harbor and cityon silent haunchesand then moves on

However, here’s the poem I showed up to post. Strong in imagery, “Pods” appears to be part of a larger work, Smoke and Steel. And it’s the only poem I know about Neponset, Illinois, a lovely village about the size of your backyard.

Pods--Carl Sandburg

Pea pods cling to stems.Neponset, the village,Clings to the Burlington railway main line.Terrible midnight limiteds roar throughHauling sleepers to the Rockies and Sierras.The earth is slightly shakenAnd Neponset trembles slightly in its sleep.

(The train tracks are off in the distance, crossing the road where it seems to dip just beyond the trees. The house that was my great-grandparents' sits left of center.)

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

I've been asked by two students to fill out a form recommendation for an on-campus job. They're not directly in competition since dozens of positions are available.

Problem 1: if the student signs the form, he waives his right to read my recommendation later. If he doesn't sign it, he can read it later.

Student 1, about whom I have the least to say, doesn't want to sign the form, strongly suggesting that he intends to read it later.

I HATE form recommendations. When I write my own recommendation letters, I have control over the amount of information I give and the level of enthusiasm I show. With this form, I am required to rate the student (I'm paraphrasing) "top notch," "good enough," "eh," or "you've got to be kidding" in seven categories. Then I have to justify my answers.

Problem 2: I have to rate Student 1 in categories for which I have utterly no opinion, which is not an option. And apparently he's going to ask to read this later. By contrast, I've spent a lot of time with Student 2. I have a lot to say about him. And he doesn't care to read the recommendation later.

The moral of the story for students: get to know those who teach you and let them get to know you.

The moral of the story for Bitty: next time think it through before you agree to give a recommendation.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

While researching music inspired by the Vietnam war, I discovered that Pat Boone recorded a pro-war song called "Wish You Were Here, Buddy" which

featured a soldier in Vietnam ridiculing war protesters and threatening to come looking for them after the war

I'm not having much luck finding that recording (darn!) but I'm persistent and will keep looking.

In the meantime, I've found the weirdest concept album since William Shatner's Transformed Man, which features the infamous "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds": Pat Boone's In a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy. The sample clips are so freaky-deaky that I'm tempted to cough up the $6.00 plus shipping to get a used copy. It would be the perfect thing to listen to while reading up on, oh, say, Bush's budget.

Featured songs include:"Panama""Enter Sandman""Stairway to Heaven"

Yes, that "Panama." That "Enter Sandman." That "Stairway to Heaven." That Pat Boone.

Sunday, February 05, 2006

I went looking for what exactly these man-animal clones are that have Mr. Bush's panties in a twist and found this thoughtful explanation by Dr. Myers of the University of Minnesota, Morris, of what scientists are up to (scroll way down when you get to his site):

Let's consider one recent example of such an experiment.

Down syndrome is a very common genetic disorder caused by the presence of an extra chromosome 21. That kind of genetic insult causes a constellation of problems: mild to moderate mental retardation, heart defects, and weakened immune systems, and various superficial abnormalities. It's also a viable defect, and produces walking, talking, interacting human beings who are loved by their friends and families, who would really like to be able to do something about those lifespan-reducing health problems. We would love to have an animal model of Down syndrome, so that, for example, we could figure out exactly what gene overdose is causing the immune system problems or the heart defects, and develop better treatments for them.

So what scientists have been doing is inserting human genes into mice, to produce similar genetic overdoses in their development. As I reported before, there have been partial insertions, but now a team of researchers has inserted a complete human chromosome 21 into mouse embryonic stem cells, and from those generated a line of aneuploid mice that have many of the symptoms of Down syndrome, including the heart defects. They also have problems in spatial learning and memory that have been traced back to defects in long-term potentiation in the central nervous system.

These mice are a tool to help us understand a debilitating human problem.

George W. Bush would like to make them illegal.

Dr. Myers explains it in close to layman's terms so that almost all of us can understand the procedure...and the humanitarian motives. Almost all of us.

In the shower (where we all entertain our deepest thoughts, yes?) I was thinking about my retirement, at least 17 years away. I'll be nearly 70, but that's the earliest I believe I can afford to walk away from gainful employment.

All this, of course, is predicated on my receiving something close to what Social Security is (not exactly) promising me. (Ever notice that disclaimer on our yearly statements that says, to paraphrase, here is what you can expect to have upon retirement...except that all the figures are subject to change?)

One thought leads to another, which leads to another, and I thought back to the brief days when I worked for the Social Security Administration, at HQ in Baltimore. I worked in a department whose exact name I no longer remember, but it handled foreign claims. My primary job was to type up the letters and memos dictated by the people who were handling review of such claims.

It was not infrequent that at issue was the conflicting claims of two "wives." Mario of Italy leaves his wife Isabella and kids at home and heads to the U.S. of A. to make money to support the family. Once in the U.S., Mario gets comfortable with his new American life, quits sending the money home, and never returns. In part (I presume) he is able to stay because he marries Polly of Poughkeepsie and perhaps even becomes a citizen. (How Mario gets away with the bigamy I do not know.)

Fast forward: Mario dies, and Polly, a stay-at-home woman who thought she was a wife, collects social security in good faith based on Mario's earnings. At some point, someone suggests to the abandoned Isabella, who was never divorced from Mario, that she might be able to collect social security based on Mario's earnings. Isabella files a claim, the SSA investigates, and then I get to type The Letter.

It's only one page long and terse. It briefly recaps the situation: Polly is not Mario's lawful wife; Isabella is. Polly has 30 days (not kidding) to refund to the Social Security Administration the benefits she has erroneously received. Please remit funds in the amount of $30,942.67 by... (This was the early 70's...imagine the numbers today.)

Thirty-five years later I still think about Mario and Isabella, but I especially think about Polly, elderly and destitute, and deeply in debt to her Uncle Sam.